


Cast A Spell Over The West

by nepetrel



Category: Doctrine of Labyrinths - Sarah Monette
Genre: Extremely Dubious Consent, Fuck Or Die, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Pining, Set In Book 2, felix POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 05:04:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14128704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nepetrel/pseuds/nepetrel
Summary: “There's a compulsion on you,” I told him, forcing myself not to look at him where he was shaking apart on the pillow beside me, not to push up against his cock. “It's only going to get worse."





	Cast A Spell Over The West

I startled awake to the feeling of my bunk dipping as someone crawled into bed with me.

My first absurd thought was that it was Malkar, though I knew it couldn't be even as I instinctively summoned up my witchlights to illuminate the intruder. Sure enough it was no threat at all, just Mildmay, his face pale and bloodless even in the green tint of the witchlights. He looked awful, far worse than he had that evening; his eyes were red and his lips were cracked at the corners. I couldn't read his face at all in the dim light, but the tightness of his shoulders and the clench of his fists as he pulled the blankets down were both far more expressive.

“Mildmay?” I whispered, but Mildmay didn't answer, his lips clamped tight like he was suppressing a scream. Instead he moved closer to me, burying his head in the pillow above my shoulder and pressing his body into mine. For all that he was shorter than me, he was heavier, muscular enough that I could feel every line and curve of him pressing into me, and that was when I felt that he was hard. 

I thought for a moment that I was having a strange and unrealistic dream, but then Mildmay shuddered as if a great burden had been lifted from him and mumbled, only intelligible because his scarred lips were inches from my ear, “'m sorry. I don't know what...”

His hips jerked once, rubbing his hardness against my abdomen, and he dug his head deeper into the pillow out of shame. 

Suddenly I knew what was affecting Mildmay, and even with the incredible heat of his body over me I felt cold all over.

I hadn't seen this before, but I had felt it, twice. Once would have been enough, but Malkar delighted in driving in his point. The first time I hadn't known what was happening until it was over, ashamed of how I'd begged for him and even more ashamed of how easily I'd given in. The second time I had told myself I wouldn't, and Malkar had made no effort to force me, watching me claw my way out of my skin until I had thrown myself on him, sobbing. 

Mildmay wasn't sobbing yet. I didn't know if that was because he had better control than I ever had or if it was just going to get worse, and I didn't want to find out.

“There's a spell on you,” I told him, forcing myself not to look at him where he was shaking apart on the pillow beside me. “A compulsion.” And, remembering Astyanax's face as he spit out that he hoped Mildmay was as good in bed as he was, I thought I knew who had cast it. Perhaps he hadn't meant for it to get this far. If I had caught the compulsion right away, I could have snapped it easily. But I hadn't been looking for it, and Mildmay must have unconsciously pushed it down so it festered for weeks. Now it was much too strong for me to break without my rings, which were hidden in the cabin of a man who had clearly meant his threat of throwing me overboard at the first sign of spellwork.

I cursed my own stupidity, and Astyanax, and myself again, but none of this helped Mildmay, who was shaking all over. We were pressed together so closely that every tremor of his body could have just as easily come from mine, but the jerk of his hips was unmistakable – just one quick movement, clearly out of his control, making his cock leave a wet kiss across the bottom of my shirt before he was able to force them to still again. 

He shook his head, a useless denial. I could feel the tips of his hair against the side of my face. 

“This is going to keep getting worse unless we go along with it,” I said quietly. “Mildmay, I...” I swallowed. “I need you to tell me it's all right to continue.” 

It was useless and cruel to demand that of him. He was fighting as hard as he could, and from the state of his face it had looked like he'd been fighting it for hours already, but the compulsion would only get more and more painful. I knew I was once again copying Malkar, leaving Mildmay compelled and refusing to touch him until the torture broke him and he finally begged for it, but I felt frozen, unable to take this last, awful step without Mildmay's cooperation, coerced as it was. And I felt stupid for feeling so trapped, because the choice was meaningless; I already knew what I was going to do. I was going to be a rapist either way. 

At least I didn't have long to wallow in the realization. Mildmay made a little noise in the back of his throat that I recognized from a half-buried memory of madness as a sob that he wouldn't let through, and then he nodded, nothing more than a flash of his hair moving up and down in the side of my vision. 

“All right,” I said, and reached out to turn his head so I could kiss him. 

He flinched, hard, harder than he would have if I'd struck him, and made an awful noise in the back of his throat that I couldn't interpret but didn't like. A second later I forgot about it entirely, caught up in the feel of his mouth, the rasp of his scarred lips against mine on the outside and the softness and endless heat within. I kept cradling the back of Mildmay's head in my hand. Perhaps I meant to comfort him, but I was too aware of the feel of his hair flowing through my fingers. He'd left it unbraided for sleep and it was even softer than it looked.

I knew the exact moment he gave in to the compulsion, because that was the moment he started kissing back.

Wanting Mildmay hadn't prepared me in the slightest for having him. For all that he wanted nothing to do with this, he kissed ferociously, as if everything I could give him was his due, leaving me stunned and breathless and even harder than before. I had panicked at Ingvard's advances, but somehow I had no such trouble here, flat on my back with my brother over me, kissing me like he wanted to consume me.

He didn't want me at all, I tried to remind myself, but I could feel myself getting lost in the sensation, one of my hands tangled in his hair, the other moving to his side to slip up his shirt. 

Giving in to part of a compulsion meant giving in to all of it. Mildmay's hips started moving again, and this time they didn't stop, rocking over and over into my abdomen. He hadn't been wearing trousers, and for one absurd moment I thought of the Troian sailors who might have gotten an eyeful, but it meant there was nothing between his cock and my skin except the thin layer of my shirt, and that was starting to feel thinner by the moment. 

It wasn't enough. Now that I was paying attention to it, I could feel the compulsion on him, a hairline crack that had nearly snaked through him before the pain had forced him to come to me. It would pause its spread momentarily when Mildmay gave in, but it wouldn't heal until he completed whatever its condition was. “Take your shirt off,” I told Mildmay, and at that moment I heard a voice from the bunk above say, “Felix?” 

Mildmay flinched, and I did too, instinctively extinguishing the witchlights. I had forgotten about Arakhne and I was furious at her for being there, suddenly protective of Mildmay in a way that seemed absurd and hypocritical even in the middle of it. I didn't want anyone else seeing him like this. “Phaeton, I need you to leave,” I called up to her, still staring at Mildmay in the dark though I could hardly see him. “My brother's not well.”

I heard Arakhne shift above. “Mildmay's here?” She asked, wary.

Mildmay had buried his head in my shoulder again, biting my shirt to keep from whimpering. I wished he'd bite my shoulder instead so that I'd have at least some scant punishment for enjoying this. He kept rubbing against me, and it took all of my self control to answer back, “he's become very sick suddenly. Please, give me some time to clean him up.” 

Arakhne made a disgusted noise at that. “It's the middle of the night,” she complained, but I heard her drop down the ladder. “I'll be back in an hour.”

“Thank you,” I said.

The second she was gone, I summoned my witchlights again. I knew I shouldn't, that I was robbing Mildmay of the only privacy he could possibly get in this situation, but I needed to see him. 

From this close I could only see the line of his back and the graceful curve of his ass. He kept moving, but we could both tell it wasn't working; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't come like this. The compulsion wouldn't let him. 

“It's not going to be enough,” I said gently. “Mildmay, take off your shirt.” 

He lifted himself off of me, inch by excruciating inch, so that he could, and at the same time I wriggled out of my own shirt and pants, and then I rolled us over, mindful to keep my weight off his scarred thigh. “Like this,” I whispered, rubbing our cocks together. Mildmay's head dropped to the pillow, his mouth opening in silent pleasure as the compulsion relaxed by a thread's-length, and I kissed him again. 

He broke the kiss. “Saints, Felix,” he said, panting. It was a good sign that he was recovering enough to talk, but I dreaded what he would say next and so kissed him again, thrusting harder. He groaned into my mouth, no longer kissing back but not fighting me either, and clutched my shoulders. I had been right about how good his fingers would feel against my skin; his calluses rubbed just right somehow, leaving shivers of sensation behind. I wish he'd move them more, caress me all over, but between his hands and his mouth and his cock rubbing against mine, it was too much anyway. The pleasure overtook me completely; I forgot about being careful as I shuddered and came, kissing him through it, holding him as if I could keep him if I clung hard enough.

The sensation of his cock against mine was too much all of a sudden, but it was an exquisite kind of pain, and I kept kissing him through it, trying to ignore how he squeezed his eyes shut every time I did. “Is this enough?” I asked him between kisses, going only far enough away that our noses brushed before coming back for more, thirsty for the taste of his mouth like I was the one with the compulsion on me. 

Mildmay turned his head to the side and I let him, kissing his neck and the side of his face instead. “No,” he said finally. “It ain't getting worse, but it ain't going away neither.” I felt him swallow as I lay an open-mouthed kiss to his pulse point. “You're not gonna have to...” 

“I won't do anything I don't have to,” I said, meaning it even as I lied, kissing him again and again when the compulsion on him didn't seem to demand it and there was no compulsion on me at all. But I didn't make myself stop, feathering more kisses to his jaw and neck, damning myself over and over as I tried to memorize the taste of his skin. 

His hands clenched harder on my shoulders, just enough to hurt. I could feel each of his nails, ten blunt little knives poised but not digging in, and I wanted them all. But Mildmay's normally cold eyes shone with fear, and I realized with some shame that being on top of him couldn't be making this any easier. 

“We'll try this,” I said, rolling us again as best as I could on the tiny bunk. Mildmay cooperated gladly, still rubbing against my soft cock, sending seesawing aftershocks of pain-pleasure through me from the overstimulation. It was perfect, except for the part where Mildmay was desperate with an arousal that refused to build to anything, and the part where he didn't want any of it. I made myself spread my legs, taking my hand off his side to push him down by the shoulders. “Between,” I said.

Mildmay frowned. “You mean I have to...”

“No,” I said, though even the thought of him inside me touched something deeper than he could ever know. I wanted it so badly I could feel my cock twitch in a valiant effort to get hard again, but Mildmay's normally expressionless face was twisted in disgust, and I apparently had limits on what I was willing to put him through. 

“Like this,” I said, and tightened my thighs around his cock. 

Mildmay's eyes shuttered, his lashes fanning over his cheeks as his lips parted. He started thrusting again, and perhaps with his eyes closed he could better pretend I was someone he would rather be with because his hand spread over my back, the thumb moving in little comforting circles as his other hand went to my neck to cradle it. 

My thighs were only slick with my own sweat and release, but it didn't seem to matter. Mildmay's face for once showed at least some of what he felt for the bare moment before he realized it and hid his face on my chest. He was short enough to duck his head so that I couldn't kiss him, but his arms caged me on either side and the bulk of him stretched over me, through me, and with every thrust it seemed almost like he really was inside me. I could feel the growl of his voice against my chest, the heat and weight of him all over, and somehow through the misery of it and the arousal that was already flooding back into me I felt strangely safe in a way I'd never felt during sex, though there was nothing safe about any of this.

I'd wondered before if Mildmay cried out when he came, but he didn't; he just shuddered again, his whole face soft and open in a way I'd never seen before, and slumped on top of me, still shaking. 

I pet his hair through the aftershocks, though I knew that it was more for me than for him. Everything seemed to be for me, I thought bitterly; even his breath against my neck was a comfort I knew I didn't deserve. 

I knew the moment the compulsion finally wore off entirely because Mildmay immediately shoved away from me with such violence that it launched him to his feet. He scrubbed his hands over his face, and when they lowered again he was stone again, except for how he couldn't stop pacing. “What the hell?”

He was naked still, and even in the dim light of my witchlights I could see the come on his thighs. I wondered if it was his or both of ours combined. 

I wanted very badly in that moment to say something horrible enough to make him leave immediately, but I had the awful thought that if I did he would never come back. Even Mildmay had to have a limit somewhere. So instead I said, “I think that was what Astyanax considers a parting gift. I'm very tempted to take the next ship back to the Gardens and give him a gift of my own.”

My voice was venomous, to my surprise. I thought it was going to shake. But that seemed to be the right thing to say; Mildmay's face didn't change, but the set of his shoulders seemed to relax slightly. “There was nothing else you could've done,” he said, more a statement than a question. 

He trusted me still, somehow, though I had just betrayed his trust in more ways than I could count. I swallowed around that thought and made myself answer. “I've had that kind of compulsion laid on me before. It builds on itself to the point of madness. I couldn't lift it without my rings.” 

“Okay.” He nodded, and that – miraculously – seemed to be enough to satisfy him. He scooped his shirt off the floor and shrugged back into it. I watched the muscles of his abdomen and arms flex before making myself look away, all too aware that I'd already taken enough from him today. I needed to stop, or else I was going to end up asking him to stay and really ruin everything. 

He tugged the end of his shirt, but it wasn't going to cover all of him no matter how he tried, so he gave up and headed for the door. He stopped before he got there, and for one horrible moment I thought he was going to thank me. Instead he awkwardly said, “sorry. For putting you through that.” 

Somehow that was even worse than a thank you. There was no way to tell him the truth, that every moment of that had been better than the one before, that I would probably touch myself to the memory of it for years to come. That I had enjoyed raping him. So instead I said, “it's all right.” 

He nodded, not looking at me, and was gone. 

I slumped back in my bunk, clawing at my face, knowing that I was the worst kind of monster and that there was no one there to deal with me the way I deserved. Five more days, I thought. Five more days until we reached land. Things couldn't possibly be worse off the ship. But I knew that the memory of what I had done would follow me wherever I went, just as surely as Mildmay would and with far more reason. And I knew just as certainly that this had not satisfied my hunger. Instead it was stronger than ever, a fire I had just fed that would always demand more. 

Mildmay would never know, I promised myself. In the face of temptation I had given in and shown far more than I should have, but I could keep from ever showing it again. We were almost to Klepsydra; once we got off the ship, it would be better. It had to be.


End file.
